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Morgan Yoder could finally breathe the sigh of relief she’s wanted to exhale for months.

Tuesday evening, the Polk County senior called the volleyball coaching staff at Mars Hill College and told them that she plans to sign a letter-of-intent to continue her career at the school. She and Wolverine teammates Mia Bradley (Virginia-Wise) and Sophia Overholt (USC Upstate) will make their college commitments official on Thursday during a signing ceremony in the school auditorium.

The commitment ended an anxious few months for Yoder, a four-year starter at Polk County who capped her career by being named Most Valuable Player in the Wolverines’ 1A state championship win.

“Honestly, it kept me up at night,” Yoder said of the wait for her commitment. “I always thought about it, what am I going to do? Am I going to play volleyball? Am I going to go to college and not play volleyball?

“It was nerve-racking because I’m a person that likes to have everything planned out. So to have uncertainty about what my future looked like, I was not a fan of that. Now it’s very refeshing.”

Mars Hill jumped earlier this year into the recruiting picture for Yoder. The school met many of her priorities, and once she visited the campus and met the coaching staff, she said the Lions immediately became her top choice.

While not having a decision throughout her senior year weighed heavily on Yoder’s mind, her on-court play did not reflect such. She was named Mountain Foothills 7 Conference Offensive Player of the Year, recording 247 kills and hitting at a .436 percentage. She had double-digit kills in Polk’s final five playoff matches, including 16 in the championship win over Perquimans.

Yoder and Overholt also learned this week that each had been selected to the North Carolina Volleyball Coaches Association 1A all-state team.

Her next accomplishment will come Thursday morning when she officially makes a lifelong dream come true.

“Commiting your senior year is kind of late, so I was unsure if it was going to happen or not,” she said. “But now that it’s happened, it’s not only a breath of fresh air, and I don’t want to sound prideful, but I am proud of myself because it’s a huge deal to me.”